5 April 2010

In an effort to keep your voracious appetite for my culinary musings satisfied, I’ve decided to start a new feature on this blog, cleverly titled “Amuse Boosh!“. It features mini-diatribes which will be published in-between my usual long-ass diatribes. You’re very welcome. That’ll be ten bucks.

Fucking UGH.

At the risk of beating a dead horse with a nail-studded axe handle until its carcass is rendered a bloody, pulverized mess, I’m afraid I have to address the continued ascendancy and asininity of Mr. Guy Fieri. I have to do this because his increasing ubiquity has forced me to increasingly contemplate why I hate his fucking guts so much. So, so much.

I mean, it’s pretty irrational that I would devote even a moment of my day to hating on some dude that worked hard and made a fortune for himself. After all, he found a douche-niche in pop culture, and shoe-horned himself in there. He has a family which he, presumably, has not Tiger Woods’d, I’m fairly confident he’s never killed a hitchhiker just to because he was bored, and I think it’s safe to assume that he’s neither Heidi nor Spencer. Indeed, it appears from a recent newspaper article that he’s good to his friends and gives a lot to charity. So, given all these apparent positive – or, at least, not hate-inducing – characteristics, should I just listen to his fans who invariably say “He’s just a guy who’s doing his job and being himself, who cares?” Are they right, should I just let a lucky, motivated guy be, as his followers would advocate? Or is it still rational to hate him? I’m going to the judges, and . . . they say “Green light to hate.” You bet your sweet ass it’s okay to hate. In fact, after reading that fawning article in the Press Democrat, I started thinking about it, and I realized that it’s not only okay for me to hate Fieri, in particular, but it’s also my duty to expand my hate to include everyone who has participated in the “Fieri Zeitgeist”.

As to Fieri, in particular, I know a lot of guys who are good to their families, who do charity and pro bono work, and who even have friends who like them, much like Fieri. And, much like Fieri, a lot of those guys are enormous fucking douchebags. You know them, too – the guy (or gal) who may be an okay person, on paper, but whose company you would spurn if a better option, such as stabbing yourself in the genitals, made itself apparent. And, indeed, to paraphrase Chris Rock: being a good person to friends, family, and community is what you’re supposed to do! You shouldn’t get points for doing that shit, especially if everything else about you is so nauseatingly insufferable. We all know the litany of Fieri’s faults: the backwards sunglasses; the dressing like he’s an early-2000’s frat guy; the blond spikes; the fact that he wears rings while cooking; the fact that he wears rings, in general; and, you know, literally everything else about him. Seriously, would you ever hang out with a guy at your office if he had the phrase “Aktuary Gangsta” on them? My point is that even if he wasn’t a celebrity, even if millions of people didn’t think he was a cool guy, even if he was a normal dude in the IT department, I would still turn down any invitation to a guys’ night I knew he would be attending, for fear of having to give courtesy laughs to his idiotic jokes and the possibility of actually having to talk to him for five minutes.

As to the whole “Fieri Zeitgeist,” in general, this is what really bugs me about him. Or, should I say, about America. Much like the fact that Paul Haggis’ Crash has a shit-load of fans and a Best Picture Oscar, that those Epic Movie things still get produced, and that that Ke$ha broad is probably a multi-millionaire, their fame makes me simultaneously sad and outraged, not at Crash or Epic Movie or Ke$ha or Fieri, but rather at the people who allowed them get where they are. It’s the same feeling I get when I contemplate the fact that Sandra Lee is actually on a network dedicated to cooking. It’s just so fucking depressing. You can’t even be mad at her – if people refused to watch a woman who made Kwanzaa cake, she wouldn’t be there, after all. It’s the same thing with Fieri – people in this country are actually so dumb and apathetic as to think Fieri is entertaining. We have elevated a guy who calls himself a “Kulinary Gangsta” into pop-culture status and a Lamborghini – because of spiked fucking hair and “Flavor Town.” And that’s where the Fieri Fans are correct; we can’t really hate Fieri for all the good fortune that’s been bestowed on him. We should, instead, hate ourselves. It’s our fucking fault. But that, in its own right, doesn’t mean that the man, himself, is not hate-worthy. He wears earrings, remember.

So, in conclusion: (1) I feel absolutely justified in disliking Fieri as a celebrity, because I’m almost positive that I would hate him if he wasn’t one, and (2) The fact that he is a celebrity makes me hate the American populace, rather than Fieri, himself. So, as always, The Chef’s Prerogative’s hate: totally justified. Sorry about the friendly fire, America, but you were askin’ for it.

Well, that’s it. That should hopefully be the last time we talk about Guy Fieri. I have exorcised my Kulinary Demonz.